“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
Jesus is near the end of His public clash with the religious leaders of Jerusalem. He stops answering their questions and starts passing sentence. This fourth "woe" exposes a religion that counted garden seeds and ignored justice. It raises a question every careful religious person must face: how do you tell a small duty from a great one?
Where the Woes Fall
By this point in Matthew the arguing is over, and the tone changes from debate to verdict.
J. G. BellettThe pleadings were now closed — the Jews convicted and silenced. There was no counsellor among them who, when asked, could answer a word. As a religion and a nation, they stood condemned. The Lord then takes the place of a judge. He sets out the evidence against them, and pronounces the solemn sentence.
The charge is not that they broke the law openly. It is that they became specialists in its fine print.
J. N. DarbyThey put forward the fine points of hair-splitting experts and neglected the essential things of God's law. They were exact about the smallest details of the tithes the law of Moses demanded. Yet they neglected justice, mercy, and faith — everything that truly mattered in the eyes of God.
Mint, Dill and Cumin
These are not crops. They are kitchen herbs from a back garden. Cumin, for example, is "a plant yielding a small aromatic seed, used as a flavouring and for medicines" (Morrish Bible Dictionary). Even so, they measured out a tenth of it for God. (Older translations read "anise"; the ESV reads "dill".)
Their record on the herbs was flawless. That is what makes the gap glaring.
Numerical Bible NotesA claim to complete integrity could hardly go further than paying tithes on the very mint and anise and cumin, the least product of their fields. Yet on the other side, they failed entirely to give what they owed. The moral elements, the weightier matters of the law, were exactly the things that carried no weight with them. In such things they strained out the gnat with care, but they swallowed the camel with ease!
What the Three Weighty Things Are
Justice, mercy and faithfulness are not vague virtues. Each one names something the leaders had dropped.
Leslie M. GrantTo them, fair judgment between good and evil did not matter at all next to tithing the smallest, most trivial items of income. They also ignored mercy toward others in need. And they forgot faith, the one principle of any true relationship with God. They should have stressed these things far more. Of course they should not have neglected the small things either — but small things should not have come first.
One writer traces these weighty matters back to the prophet Micah, and mercy is the one Jesus kept returning to.
The Bible TreasuryI would judge the "weightier matters of the law" here to be a reference to Micah 6:8. There you find the principle… The Lord often pointed out in His talks that they did not understand mercy. "If you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless."
Why the Small Things Attracted Them
Why herbs rather than justice? Luke's account of the same woe names the root:
William KellyIt was really the same root of self, fallen human nature under a religious veil. Why did they want to stand out from others like this? Others gave the tithes they honestly owed to God. The Pharisees seized on the tiniest points, which cost them little, and won credit from men no wiser than themselves. But they slighted judgment and the love of God.
The Half Sentence That Saves the Verse
Jesus does not cancel the tithing of herbs. He refuses to let it stand in for obedience.
The Bible TreasuryWe know the Lord has said, "One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much." And so we get, "These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others." We must not be careless about little things. But the Lord was speaking of reality. It did not cost them much to tithe the little herbs in their gardens, and they got a good name by it. They had their reward.
The Same Fault Today
This is not a museum piece about an extinct group.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinTheir self-righteousness and piety consisted in being very careful about minor things, while they ignored the important matters altogether. They strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel. It is not different today. People make far too much of small, unimportant details in religious practice, and ignore the important matters.
Summary
- Weight — the whole verse turns on one word. The weightier matters of the law were, to these men, the things with no weight at all.
- Weight measured — God's scale weighs justice, mercy and faithfulness. Theirs weighed mint, dill and cumin, the smallest produce of a garden.
- Weight chosen — they picked the light duties because those were cheap and won them a good name. That is self wearing a religious veil.
- Weight kept — Jesus does not delete the small duty; He refuses to let it replace the great one. Do these, without neglecting those.
- Weight today — wherever people magnify small religious details and ignore the serious matters, they still strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.